


sympathy from (not really) the devil

by ProjectFYERBIRD



Category: Ghost Rider (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Cats, Crack Treated Seriously, Family Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Animal Abuse, Slice of Life, what do you do when the spirit of vengeance possessing ur body brings home a cat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-24 06:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17699540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProjectFYERBIRD/pseuds/ProjectFYERBIRD
Summary: ghost rider adopts a cat. danny's not that impressed.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ignores my carnage longfic and my two drafts for this

The rain was coming down hard, large droplets that hissed and turned into steam as they made contact with the supernatural hellfire that held the Ghost Rider together. Lightning flashed in the heavens above, briefly illuminating the empty side street before the rolling crash of thunder that was to follow came down upon the city. It momentarily smothered the growling of Ghost Rider's motorcycle as it rent the air but soon the motorcycle's engine reigned supreme once more. He came to a slow, rolling stop just at the mouth of an dark alleyway, which yawned open in an almost sinister manner. And then, despite the booming thunder and the pouring rain, a small noise at the edge of his awareness that only his supernaturally enhanced senses could have picked up.

A pathetic meow from deep inside the alley.

He paused for a second before heading in, flickering flames casting strange shadows on the alleyway clutter. Another second, another meow, and he had pinpointed the location of the sound. A cat, soaked and shivering, cowering under a sopping cardboard box. Not wholly aware of his own actions, Ghost Rider outstretched a single gloved hand, stopping just short of the waterlogged box. When the cat did not hiss or make an attempt at escape he reached for it carefully, securing a grip on the scruff of its neck and hauling it forward. It pressed closer to him, seeking out the internal warmth hellfire provided him with. Its rib cage vibrated against his fingers, and he could feel its rapid heartbeat through the leather of his gloves. He tucked the shivering ball of fur into his jacket, close to his burning core at the centre of his sternum, its little head peaking out from the collar, just above where the zipper ended.

Dan would be upset with him about this, no doubt, but a cat constituted as an innocent, right? And it was his duty as a spirit of vengeance to prevent innocent blood from being spilt, having no doubt that the cat would no survive the night at the rate the rain was falling.

So he quieted down the engine until it was barely a whisper and dimmed the fiery glow that came with his flame until it was lost to the street lamps above, and took a winding path back to Dan's apartment. He parked the motorcycle in the alleyway, confident that it would not allow itself to be stolen, and came in through the window. The cat jumped out of his jacket when he crouched down, fur only slightly damp but still spiked. A whisper of something at the back of his mind, maybe Dan's consciousness from his location in the Void, told him to stroke it down. He did so, soothing the ruffled fur until it was flat. The cat purred and rubbed its face against his hand. He scratched under its chin and the purring ratcheted up a notch. Ghost Rider stayed there for what had to be minutes, kneeling on the carpeted living room and letting the cat headbutt his knuckles, still and silent. The only sounds in the apartment being the rumbling purrs of the cat, the muffled hiss and crackle of flame, the electronic buzzing of appliances in the kitchen. And the thunder and the rain from outside, of course.

Eventually, Ghost Rider stood, leaving the cat to its own devices in the living room, and traveled across the apartment to Dan's bedroom. There, in the doorway, he opened the door to the Void and slipped inside its dark embrace to let Dan back into the world. In a single painful instant, flame receded back into the hollow, deep parts of his body and flesh bubbled up from bone to sculpt a face with eyes, a mouth, and a nose. A second of agony before Daniel Ketch stood at the entrance of his bedroom in his Brooklyn apartment, head pressed to the doorframe and breathing heavily. He stepped inside and left the door slightly ajar, a thin strip of darkness pouring in from the unlit living room and kitchen that lay beyond it.

"Bedroom, huh?" He asked no one in particular. "Not the cemetery?" He wondered why for a second, but then his head was hitting the pillow and he suddenly wasn't in the mood for thinking.

The morning went a little like this: Danny woke up just as the sun was coming up, and lay there in bed for a few more minutes before finally getting up. He sat up, yawned, and stretched, feeling and hearing his spine crunch in ways a spine belonging to a man in his twenties shouldn't and changed out of the stiff clothes he'd worn to bed. He'd fallen asleep in the clothes he had been wearing before he changed into the Ghost Rider again. Wouldn't be the first time, and it probably wouldn't be the last. Dressed in a more comfortable pair of boxers and white wife beater he stumbled into the kitchen, only to come to a dead stop. There was a cat sitting on the counter, staring at him with yellow-green eyes.

That wasn't his cat. He didn't have a cat.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> danny has a (sort of) conversation with ghost rider and makes new plans for the day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter's a bit longer than the last one. i dont know how many chapters this will have exactly but ive got around 4 or 5 planned out at this moment, featuring some guest stars. anyways. enjoy this.

Danny stared at the cat. The cat stared back.

At least he knew now why Ghostie had come back home instead of their usual haunt at Cypress Hills Cemetery. No way would he have gotten away with keeping a cat in the motorcycle's saddlebags as Danny drove back home. 

They held their little stalemate for just under half a minute before his eyes got itchy and he had to look away and blink rapidly. And then he looked back to the cat, which had begun to lick its paw and rub that against its face. It didn't look like anything special, for a cat; it was small, skinny, and orange and white. He scratched his head and wondered how it even got in. The windows had been closed, the door locked. And then, the faint recollection of foreign memories stirred up from the shadowy flaming presence at the back of his mind, a collection of impressions and sensations. Rain pattering down on a leather jacket, the crunch of gravel under a bony knee, a small warm body curled up near a chest. 

His hand moved from the back of his head to the bridge of his nose, and he sighed. He and Ghost Rider were going to have to have a talk. 

He reached out to the cat, slowly, planning to curve a hand down its head or scratch behind its ears or under its chin, and it leapt off the counter, disappearing into the living room to most likely hide under the couch. Alright. Skittish, then. Emotions doubled back on each other as Ghost Rider echoed Danny's pangs of disappointment. Pointedly ignoring that, he turned and went into the bathroom, searching through the drawers for the tube of red lipstick hidden somewhere in them. He found it and scrawled a message across the top part of the mirror. The words stood out cherry red against his reflection. 

_did you bring the cat home? why?_

A second, during which he braced himself against the frigid porcelain sink, and then the agony set in, shooting through him like thick liquid fire. Skin was melted down to the bone by ghostly fire, consumed in a swirling vortex of hellfire. And then Ghost Rider was standing there in Danny's cramped bathroom, slightly hunched as to not knock his head against the overhead fan vent. He took in the messaged, paused, and wrote out his answer with a gloved finger. 

Danny returned to his body with the same old pain–he would  _never_ get used to that–and read the response, written in ash. 

 _yes,_ and then.  _the animal is innocent._

He scrubbed his face with a hand. Of course. Ghostie had his whole 'thing' of protecting the innocent and enacting vengeance on what innocent blood was spilt. Danny was shaking his head as he returned to the kitchen, the cat still out of sight. Hiding somewhere, most likely. Not that it would be too hard to find, giving the limited space his apartment afforded A damp washcloth had taken care of the lipstick and ash messages left on the mirror. He and Ghostie would have to have a proper conversation about the cat later, face-to-flaming-skull, but for now, breakfast. He made himself a bowl of cereal and ate it sitting on the counter, his heels bouncing against the wooden cabinets as he kicked his legs. As he ate he watched the space underneath the couch, moving his eyes to the sides of the TV stand every handful of seconds, looking for a shift in fabric, or the end of a tail poking out, anything. Nothing changed by the time the bowl and spoon were dumped in the sink to be washed later that night after dinner, so he hopped off and ambled back into his bedroom to get changed. 

The original plan for the day had been to bum around his apartment, taking advantage of his rare weekend off after a work friend had agreed to take his shifts down at the bar, but obviously that was going to have to change. Despite the lingering soreness from last night's moonlighting as the Ghost Rider he hopped into a pair of jeans and pulled on a t-shirt picked up off the ground that didn't smell too bad. He grabbed a bowl from the cupboards and filled it with water and scraped out the contents of a can of tuna onto a plate and left them both on the floor near the fridge. He didn't have any cat food for obvious reasons, number one being that he didn't own a cat, and to his knowledge no one else in the building owned one either, so he couldn't borrow any. He hoped the tuna would do. 

Shrugging on his blue jacket, collar popped as always, he walked all the way down to Pedro's Bodega. When he turned the corner he could already see his friend Chio sitting outside with his dog, the both of them most likely enjoying the respite (thanks to the previous night's storm) from the summer's heat. Chio waved at him when he spotted him coming down the sidewalk, adjusting his baseball cap so that he could see him better. "Danny!" He greeted, "Wassup man?" He offered his hand and pulled him into a one-armed hug before settling back down on an empty wooden crate that smelled faintly of oranges, legs outstretched. 

"Ain't nothing change but the weather," Danny said with a grin, and Chio laughed. 

"You could say that again. You catch the thunderstorm last night? I thought it was gonna knock my power out. Chupi wouldn't stop barking all night, too." The pitbull looked up at the mention of his name, but settled his head back onto his paws after a second.

Danny thought back to foggy memories of a motorcycle splashing its way through puddles, of staring down a group of drug pushers at the back of an alleyway, rain pounding on Ghost Rider's back as his Penance Stare chewed through their souls with the cold burn of hellfire. "Me too man. Driving back home on my cycle was a nightmare. Thought I was gonna turn into road pizza." They both laughed, a little uneasily, before Danny sobered up. "Listen, I have to ask you a favour. Nothing big," he said, "but I was just wondering if I could borrow Chupi's old dog crate for the day." 

"Don't see why not," Chio said, and Danny smiled brightly, tension relieving itself from his shoulders. "Why, though?"

Oh.

"Uh. I sort of . . . got a cat."

At that, Chio raised his eyebrows. " _You_ got a cat?" He asked, a vein of faint incredulity laced in his tone.

"My  _roommate_ got a cat. Just some stray he brought it from the storm. I don't know if he's gonna keep it, but I want to take it to the vet to get it checked out. See if its been microchipped and has an owner."

"Ah yes," he said. "This elusive 'roommate' of your's whose name you've never mentioned and who I've never seen come down here once. Sure this roommate isn't just an excuse to hide that you a soft spot for kitty cats, Danny?"

He caught Danny's dirty look and raised his hands placatingly. "I'll go get it right now, just look after Chupi while I'm gone." And then he disappeared into his place above the bodega through a side door set in the alley between it and the next building. While he was gone, Danny crouched and ruffled the dog's ears, earning a few appreciative licks of his hand. Chio came back down after a couple minutes, plastic dog crate in hand. Chio had used it for when Chupi was a puppy, but he had outgrown it since then. It was a bit large for a cat, but it would work more than well. "Here you go. You can keep it if you want. Chupi's too big for it now anyways."

"Thanks man, you're a lifesaver." 

Chio grinned and pulled him into another hug before letting him leave. "No problem, Danny. Anything for a friend." 

As Danny walked back down the sidewalk, the sun peeked out from behind a wall of puffy white clouds and shone down on the back of his head warmly. He smiled to himself. He still didn't know what he was going to do with this cat, but maybe this day wasn't a write-off after all. Maybe he'd even keep the cat. (For Ghostie's sake, and after a long talk about pets and responsibility, of course.)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm . . . not too sure at what point in the canon this is set in, i just started writing the first chapter in like half an hour and posted it same-day.
> 
> it's definitely post-that long-winded zarathos arc, johnny and danny know theyre brothers, danny and ghostie have reached an understanding, danny and stacy aren't in a relationship anymore (just friends), and ghostie still doesn't know who he is.


End file.
